A new political-entertainment class has moved into the noisy void once occupied by the sage pontiffs of yore, a class just as polarized as our partisan divide: one side holding up a fun-house mirror to folly, the other side reveling in its own warped reflection.

It's the contemporary woman that movies don't know what to do with, other than bathe her in a bridal glow in romantic comedies where both the romance and the comedy are artificial sweeteners.

The advent of DVD/Blu-ray reissues of classic Hollywood and foreign films has been a boon to film buffs, who can now study their favorites in all their glistening detail and restored palettes.

A typical 'Larry King Live' is a pastiche whose absurdism defies parody. Wearing his trademark suspenders and purple shirts, he looks as if he's strapped to the chair with vertical seat belts, unable to eject.

Particularly fine is the top-heavy comedienne, Loni Anderson, as the receptionist whose movements turn men to stone...she keeps her head while all the men around her are losing theirs.

It isn't that NPR is matriarchal but that it has dedicated itself to not being patriarchal in its outlook and presentation, stipulating from the outset that its headline voices would not resound across the fruited plains from big male bags of air sent from Mount Olympus.

What a turnaround in sentiment 'Glee' exemplifies. It was only a few years ago that pursuing the dream of a Broadway career or cabaret stardom relegated some poor yearning dope to a lavender ghetto of losers, self-deluders, and social rejects.